Public Policy is social agreement written down as a universal guide for social action. We at The Policy ThinkShop share information so others can think and act in the best possible understanding of "The Public Interest."

We can all agree that extremely intelligent people can disagree and sometimes succumb to irrational feelings, misunderstandings and conflict. It is not enough to be smart. It is also important to get along with people, to understand them, and to express ourselves in pleasant ways that help us all get along.

We all at one time or another let our emotions carry us to places we thought we could never reach and some places and situations we never intended to be in. Emotions are an important part of our successes and failures and that includes the emotions that drive the actions of others who impact our journey. It is hard to imagine that learning to manage our emotions and to better understand the emotions of others is not an extremely desirable thing that we can pursue in a straightforward manner. But for many it is not. The concepts that cover this important topic, “emotional literacy” and “emotional competence” can be summarized in the operational definition of emotional intelligence.

Definition of Emotional Intelligence (EQ): “… the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions. We posit that life tasks such as those described by Cantor and her colleagues and constructive thinking defined by Epstein are laden with affective information, that this affective information must be processed (perhaps differently than the cognitive information), and that individuals may differ in the skill with which they do so. Emotional intelligence is also a part of Gardner’s view of social intelligence, which he refers to as the personal intelligences. Like social intelligence, the personal intelligences (divided into inter- and intra­ personal intelligence) include knowledge about the self and about others. One aspect of the personal intelligence relates to feelings and is quite close to what we call “emotional intelligence.” John Mayer and Peter Salovey, 1990

Emotional intelligence (also known as “EQ”) is an idea that grew up in academia, was popularized on pop psychology shelves and, more recently, has been made useful in leadership development and organizational management circles. From its conception, it was juxtaposed to the idea of Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Its lofty intellectual beginnings notwithstanding, EQ has been embraced by so many for so many reasons that its early paradigmatic intentions may now be lost to the many.

If the intelligence scale we call “IQ” has been controversial, EQ has been equally misunderstood. Even if we can all agree on a definition and on appropriate applications of EQ theory, it’s behavioral health benefits cannot be implemented through quick short-term programs nor can it’s salutary outcomes be made sustainable without a significant transformation in our health education and K through 12 school educational systems. Many of the individuals, that could benefit from the competencies that learning and having good EQ promises, are neither fortunate enough to access the education nor in social circumstances conducive to self improvement pursuits. In a more mindful and egalitarian world, more complex ideas may achieve greater buoyancy and utility. EQ is no exception.

Popular ideas live in the minds of the many and, perhaps because of their simplicity and utility, become sustainable and prolific for both producers and consumers. The dilemma is, however, that society often needs ideas that are more complex in order to solve and address vexing modern problems. To Goleman’s credit, in part due to his efforts, EQ is being applied through his numerous consulting activities and, for example, in his supportive role helping to organize a set of conferences that led to the publication of a 1997 book by John Mayer and Peter Salovey (Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Educational Implications) addressing possible emotional intelligence and social skills applications to address child development and conflict resolution in school systems (the academic team that initially developed the “theory” that led to EQ as a useful framework for researching and teaching the role that emotions play in achieving personal, social, and organizational success). Aside from this collaboration, though, much of what is popularly understood about EQ has been disseminated through Goleman’s consulting and pop psychology success NYTs best seller style.

Academic ideas and constructs more often tend to be quite different from popular ideas. They differ in that their currency tends to require intellectual specialization, academic environments akin to monasteries, and individuals with a broad understanding of the numerous currents and variables that give academic products their place in the refereed conversation of the nation’s professorial ranks. Emotional intelligence is an important flashpoint for forces with differing origins yet, ideally, common destinations–thinking individuals wanting to promote social good and noble ends. Daniel Goleman and Adam Grant are two such forces; they are social communicative pundits in the ongoing tug of war that will define the proper and productive utility, and place, of emotional intelligence, as a leadership and workforce development concept. According to Grant, Goleman goes too far in trying to apply EQ to business intelligence, heretofore an area reserved for things more mathematical and tangible. Goleman has been given a professional home on the pages of the prestigious Harvard Business Review, an instrument of both Grant and Goleman’s alma matter. A key question would be: Is EQ being misapplied or is the environment where it needs to be applied unready for its heuristic promises? Given the challenges, faced or ignored, by today’s business and organizational leaders, can we afford to dismiss this popular tool?

Adam Grant published a provocative article on LinkedIn formulating a critique of Goleman’s more global approach to EQ. Unfortunately, Grant’s article includes academic claims and posturing that is clouded by his overall trivial tone. We need a greater focus on academic rigor and the pursuit of more robust theoretical constructs that can yield progress towards EQ program development and implementation, in the area of behavioral health, for example. This seriousness seems to be lacking at the present time–certainly in Grant’s article (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140930125543-69244073-emotional-intelligence-is-overrated?trk=prof-post).

We may be exceedingly amazed to see academics, intellectuals, pundits, and intellectual entrepreneurs spar, in the marketplace of ideas, in order to promote their worth and place in the market. The debate seems omnipresent as it crosses many borders through the Harvard Business Review, on blogs, and here on LinkedIn. Certainly, Adam Grant steps into the breach and tries to hold Goleman to task for what he sees as academic obfuscation. Interestingly, he borders on ad hominem intentions and plain teasing. Perhaps Adam Grant is pandering to this electronic social media medium and finds such rhetorical tools necessary. Perhaps the conversation that is sought here with leaders understands that today’s leaders are not Plato’s philosopher kings. Indeed, Grant does not seem to see the business of management outside of specific emotional terrain so touchy feely as Goleman would. It is plain to see that Daniel Goleman’s place is secure, as the high priest of pop psychology, because his Ph.D. in Psychology and his perch on the NYTs allowed him to popularly run with the “EQ” concept and build an entrepreneurial empire which may outlive him and the rest of us. To be sure, the spoils from the ensuing popular media endeavors have favored Goleman’s lot, EQ’s intellectual forefathers have not similarly gained (John Mayer and Peter Salovey). This does not bode well for future intellectuals lacking entrepreneurial prowess. You will find Mr. Grant on LinkedIn though, promoting his intellectual wares; he’ll do just fine.

Interestingly, we can look at Salovey’s dissertation from way back in 1986 for the early intellectual ground from which the concept of EQ grew (P. Salovey, The Effects of Mood and Focus of Attention on Self-Relevant Thoughts and Helping Intention, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1986). We can also look at the role of popular psychology in our culture to find similar ground for Goleman’s efforts and success. Mayer and Salovey are the original promoters of the ideas and of the intellectual history which gave intellectual buoyancy to the concept. Daniel Goleman refers to his encounter with the work of these two men in a passing way and diminishes their importance by alluding to the lack of stature of the journal in which they published the original 1990 article “Emotional Intelligence.” Goleman has turned the work of these men into a cottage industry and his published retort to Grant shows his ability to popularly promote the term “EQ” in contrast to feebly defending it. Perhaps Goleman is safe behind the popularity curtain always protecting his wizard like reputation. Up and coming scholar, Adam Grant, rightly exposes Goleman’s use of the concept as less relevant outside the parameters of academic rigor and of the realms of possible scientific discipline and emotive applications. The academic trial only seems to be beginning, though, and the popular court is woefully incapable of sequestering an appropriate jury to reach a useful verdict that would bridge the cerebral gap between academic thinkers, intellectual entrepreneurs and the laboring rank and file. Given EQ’s arguably heuristic potential and the millions that are being made from its application or misapplication, we can’t have some thinking of it as business and the rest of us as “nobody’s business.”

The concept has grown to mean so many things to so many people that it now means specifically very little within the confines of academic, intellectual or theoretical query. Salovey and Mayer’s contributions to modern management and leadership are now popularly distant from their original rigorous work. The popular development of that work may possibly have obstructed the original potential of Salovey and Mayer’s ideas and constructs, further obfuscating the road to needed progressive managerial and leadership applications. Goleman has made it common coin and personal gain–neither being efforts which have contributed significantly in taking the concept further along its original intellectual journey; nor has it helped in the building of necessary theoretical constructs that can give us an applied framework that allows for clarity regarding how and when it is useful as a heuristic model for organizational, group, or individual purposes. To be sure, Goleman now makes these claims; but his arguments are devoid of the rigor evident in the original works of the real pioneers from which the potentially useful constructs originate.

Centuries have passed since the monastic catacombs of the original academy, with its religious literati and the ensuing work of the eventually enlightened philosophers and scientists. That is work that was preserved and discriminatingly shared through coveted books and into modernity. But all that has now changed and continues to change. Academia is only one voice in a cacophony of social and intellectual media now fueled by e-commerce and consumed on billions of instantaneous screens. Ideas are now increasingly, and literally, in the clouds, ubiquitous cannon fodder for daily consumption; their value and retention seems now to be more tethered to the common cause than to the lofty undertaking. Can you imagine that?

Social Media is interactive, sustainable and deliciously repetitive … This means you can use it to promote and sustain messages, conversations and eventually more easily sustained marketing relationships with your customers.

The Policy ThinkShop brings your attention to this exemplary story about promoting in the age of social media …

“If you had a book coming out, and you were considering how to get people excited to buy it, read it, and talk about it, which would be most valuable to you:1 a 3-minute segment about your book which is long by TV news standards, including a close-up shot of the cover, on primetime CNN. . .2 a 1,000 word piece you wrote on a topic related to your book, published in the Sunday opinion section of America’s newspaper of record, the New York Times, which reaches the #6 most emailed piece on NYTimes.com within a day. . .3 a guest post you wrote, published on the blog of one lone dude in SF obsessed with fat loss, female orgasms, and lifting Russian kettle bells?If your goal was to cause a lightning storm of book sales, you should pick #3. I know—I did all three.”

The internet is instantaneously connecting the world and speeding up business. The public relations and communications capacity of firms is being multiplied by their ability to broadcast messages to huge audiences at small prices. But what happens when communications experts phase market opportunities in languages and cultures they can now more easily reach but do not understand?

As world trade expands on the wings of technological progress and the opening of huge markets (like the Chinese, new leaders like Brazil, and others) creates a need for intercultural exchange, speaking a second or third language may prove to be a key asset. Depending on the languages you speak, your career prospects could differ accordingly.

“Why do the languages offer such different returns? It has nothing to do with the inherent qualities of Spanish, of course. The obvious answer is the interplay of supply and demand. This chart reckons that Spanish-speakers account for a bit more of world GDP than German-speakers do. But an important factor is economic openness. Germany is a trade powerhouse, so its language will be more economically valuable for an outsider than the language of a relatively more closed economy.”

America is no longer changing … It has changed. To be sure, demographics move more rapidly than the mainstream culture, but sheer numbers eventually transform and redefine the whole. In this way, the American scene is changing rather rapidly and this is no where more true than in the economy.

Take for example, the connection between television, the internet, radio and politics as popular mediums that are driven by “consumers.” Hispanics are increasingly becoming a growing and vibrant segment of every important sector of the economy and young entrepreneurs are finally stepping up to the plate. One example is Hollywood success story filmmaker Robert Rodriguez of popular mainstream hits such as Spy Kids and Sin City.

Hispanic influence on the mainstream culture has been slow in coming, especially since many of the mainstream mediums that magnify an ethnic group’s interests and influence have not embraced the sleeping giant that is the nation’s latino community. This cannot hold much longer. A generation of educated and ambitious Hispanic leaders is coming of age.

The numerical reality of the Hispanic community is not reflected in the nation’s identity nor in its financial success indicators. This is rapidly changing and it will impact the work that you do and who you do it with sooner than you may think.

“With films like El Mariachi, Desperado, Spy Kids and Sin City, Austin-based filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has carved out a career on Hollywood’s fringe. He is a key member of the digital filmmaking revolution and the original indie film bootstrapper, having funded his debut movie with cash he earned from being a medical test dummy. Now, he’s turning his attention to the world of television with his own network, El Rey, bringing his tastes to a mass audience and filling in a few gaps for the Hispanic population in the process.

It’s one of a handful of new networks launching this spring headlined by bold face names, a happy byproduct of Comcast/Universal merger and a requirement from the FCC that ten networks be given to independent owners and operators, four with a minority focus. Others getting into the network game include Magic Johnson and Sean Combs.”

The Policy ThinkShop: Research to help you understand internet security and social media privacy.

If you are serious about keeping up with technology and social media you better get up to speed on the current disclosures detailing the lack of security and privacy on the internet…. Not only from BIG BROTHER (government) but from anyone interested in peeking.

“Besides beefing up their internal security, many of America’s big firms have been lobbying Congress to rein the NSA in. But there is reason to think that technological changes could run ahead of legal ones. In some leaked slides, the NSA describes a lot of its programmes as “fragile”, Dr Green notes, suggesting that it worries they can be thwarted without too much trouble. And techno-fixes offer something laws do not. There are dozens of signals-intelligence agencies in the world, some of which serve pretty unsavoury governments. Laws can affect only one agency at a time. Cyber-criminals will, naturally, ignore them entirely. But techno-fixes work against everyone.”

The Policy ThinkShop Comments on Other Social Media: BIG BROTHER IS LISTENING AND SHARING

BIG DATA is changing the world. Because it is predominantly a high tech, expensive and rapidly changing business endeavor, governments have to collaborate, borrow and share in order to play in the BIG DATA game.

What are the implications for the relationship between government control and individual privacy and freedom? When government morphs into a global player, sharing and collecting on the open market your personal data, what are the implications for protecting your own interests in relations to the interests of corporate giants and world stage political actors who are protecting pursuing their own interests and wants?

“The power of information is in the eyes of the beholder–especially public opinion. What we know and think about what others know is crucial for the future of privacy in our societies and perhaps freedom itself.”

According to a previously mentioned article here at The ThinkShop (tick here for previous article: https://policyabcs.wordpress.com/?s=PEW ), nearly 1 our of 5 people over 18 years of age are not online. This could be a number that stays significant as a segment of the general public is not able to or rejects out of hand going online. This is quite interesting since the paper media is increasingly readjusting to the online and social media trends and political campaigns, for example, are constantly trying to find special niches that will give candidates an edge. Public relations and marketing gurus are looking at surprising trends in paper media which have some players surviving at the top of, some say, the sinking heap and others hovering at the bottom.

In either case, the life of these pre internet behemoths will tell us much about how publics engage and respond to both the new media access opportunities and cling to the floating platforms most see as relics of the dying print and paper days.

“According to figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations posted today (11 October), September was a good month ABC-wise for the Guardian and Observer, with both titles seeing strong …”

The Pew Foundation has an impressive network of websites promoting socially relevant and timely research that looks at emerging social trends and challenges in the areas of technology, social media, religion, politics, and others… The most recent issue addressing internet use, one of the main areas that Pew supports, includes a survey on internet use. The survey is important because we know, for obvious reasons, much about people using the internet but not so much about those absent from cyberspace. The report gives us interesting data and analysis on the nearly fifth of persons 18 years or older who by choice or constraint are not going online. This trend is interesting given the current explosion of handheld devises that make the internet ubiquitous and internet able gadgets an increasingly unavoidable necessity.

As you have become accustomed, The Policy ThinkShop does the research for you and provides a friendly place where you can come back and discuss what you found useful and relevant in your daily musings and/or work.

Be sure to come back and comment as your participation here will promote The Policy ThinkShop blog and keep our team working for you…

The full report is being provide here by The Policy ThinkShop. Enjoy: http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2013/PIP_Offline%20adults_092513_PDF.pdf

“As of May 2013, 15% of American adults ages 18 and older do not use the internet or email.

Asked why they do not use the internet:

34% of non-internet users think the internet is just not relevant to them, saying they are not interested, do not want to use it, or have no need for it.

32% of non-internet users cite reasons tied to their sense that the internet is not very easy to use. These non-users say it is difficult or frustrating to go online, they are physically unable, or they are worried about other issues such as spam, spyware, and hackers. This figure is considerably higher than in earlier surveys.

19% of non-internet users cite the expense of owning a computer or paying for an internet connection.

7% of non-users cited a physical lack of availability or access to the internet.

Even among the 85% of adults who do go online, experiences connecting to the internet may vary widely. For instance, even though 76% of adults use the internet at home, 9% of adults use the internet but lack home access. These internet users cite many reasons for not having internet connections at home, most often relating to issues of affordability—some 42% mention financial issues such as not having a computer, or having a cheaper option outside the home.”

Given today’s liberalization of news information, few bastions remain where one can sift through the cacophony of media bites and babble to form an educated

opinion or assess an educated risk. The Economist is failing in this regard on the American debate on healthcare reform–The Affordable Care Act.

Healthcare reform in America is a struggle for power and wealth at the increasingly small American top and a life and death struggle for most of the people below.

If we loose respected journals like the Economist in these times of mass information as intellectual fodder for the masses, we will be left without an intellectual meeting place where concerned minds can gather to contemplate benchmarks and directions. Regarding The Affordable Care Act debate in America, not only has the current president failed to sell and communicate the important of ACA implementation, he has once again betrayed the needs of the many for the expedient and self serving calculus of preserving power and status by appealing to an imaginary center–not too different here from the pragmatic Bill Clinton on Welfare Reform. But we digress.

The Economist has been a reliable source for decades as it has proven to be an \”objective\” source of information on the complex world stage. It\’s recent coverage of the American scene, however, requires vision and focus if it is going to support the journal\’s reputation as one of the few sources that our college professors respected that were not refereed journals.

The headline of the above story, \”The Obamacare sofware mess,\” is as semantically charged as it is irrelevant to any of the public policy issues raised by a serious American healthcare market debate addressing the important issue of how healthcare is distributed, facilitated or accessed by people in need of healthcare services.

Semantics: The term \”Obamacare\” plays directly into the divisive and charged narrative that portrays the healthcare debate in America as a tug of war between an \”evil and un-American\” president and American freedom. The framing of the current full court press, by conservatives, to obstruct the American president, at all at all costs, and the popular will of a democracy, is akin to saying that Churchill failed to stop Hitler sooner or to foresee the costs of settling with Stalin because of his neonatally determined speech impediment. It is academically irresponsible and intellectually dishonest, at least on the pages of this fine journal, to stain this usually intellectually rigorous space with narratives that are more appropriate in pop news sources that entertain people who are looking to reinforce their own deeply held biases and/or myopic political world views.

The Economics has been a leading world source of factual information relevant to the business of serious policy discourse and sober business leadership.

The foregoing comments are submitted on behalf of the Policy ThinkShop blogging team.

As a not for profit, non partisan source of policy analysis and conversation, we rely heavily on sources like the Economist to promote reason and thoughtful

conversation on all things public policy….

Please reconsider your use of the American public policy discourse and reflect on your use of language to add to and further support our current cacophony of obstructionism and self promoting pragmatism in the pursuit of popular power and further public policy noise…

In a world that is being made smaller everyday by advances in travel and technology, culture and language remain significant causes of distance between people. America has a tremendous treasure in its diversity and in the muscle of its young and growing Hispanic/Latino population. The Policy ThinkShop brings you the following facts to get you thinking about America’s future and its role in a multicultural and multilingual world…

National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, a period chosen because it bookends the independence days of five Central American nations (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica, Sept. 15), Mexico (Sept. 16) and Chile (Sept. 18), as well as Columbus Day/Dia de la Raza (Oct. 14 this year in the United States). In honor of the event, here are five key facts about U.S. Hispanics:

1. Geography: Although there’s been some dispersion in recent years, the Hispanic population remains highly concentrated. More than half (55%) of the nation’s Hispanics live in just three states — California, Texas and Florida — and 71% live in just 100 of the nation’s 3,143 counties and county-equivalents.

2. Population size: According to the Census Bureau, there were 51.9 million U.S. Hispanics in 2011 (its latest estimate, for 2012, is just over 53 million). The Hispanic population grew 47.5% between 2000 and 2011, according to a Pew Research analysis, and accounted for more than half (55%) of total population growth over that period.

3. Countries of origin: The umbrella term “Hispanic” embraces a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures. However, nearly two-thirds of U.S. Hispanics trace their family origins to Mexico; Puerto Ricans, the nation’s second-largest Hispanic-origin group, make up 9.5% of the total Hispanic population.

4. Educational attainment: College enrollment among Hispanic high school graduates has risen over the past decade: According to the Census Bureau, 49% of young Hispanic high-school graduates were enrolled in college in 2012, surpassing the rate for white (47%) and black (45%) high-school grads.

5. Language usage: A record 35 million (74%) Hispanics ages 5 and older speak Spanish at home. Spanish is the second-most spoken language in the United States. Nearly all U.S. Hispanics say it’s important that future generations speak Spanish.

For those of us who have nothing to hide today, the idea that tomorrow’s leaders may be peeping at everything we do that we presume to be private is downright creepy! Indeed, the so called leak scandal in DC today is giving more and more people some pause.

Imagine that we continue to allow the government to peek in on our lives with impunity. Tomorrow, a government program that is partly privatized lands your most personal and private information in the hands of a leaker. But that leaker does not leak to the general public, he or she sells or uses your information for personal gain. The possibilities are no longer hypothetical. It all seems to be unraveling before our very eyes…

“‘WE WANT you to help us do this better,” asserted General Keith Alexander (pictured), the director of America’s National Security Agency (NSA), to hundreds of computer hackers at Black Hat, an annual information-security conference in Las Vegas on July 31st. General Alexander claimed that his agency’s mass-surveillance programmes had stopped 54 potential terrorist plots. He reassured the audience that their privacy was being protected. Still, there were a few heckles.

America’s spies have had a tough time since Edward Snowden, a former intelligence contractor, began leaking information that revealed the massive scale of NSA snooping. Indeed, just as General Alexander tried to charm the geeks, Britain’s Guardian newspaper published another leak by Mr Snowden. This one revealed a system called XKeyscore that lets the NSA glean emails, chats and browsing histories without specific authorisation. The intelligence agency confirmed the programme, but said it was lawful and essential.”

After years of the seemingly inadvertent fomentation of distrust among its polity (the growing role of the U.S. government and the Vietnam war, for example), technology has opened up a potentially ubiquitous eavesdropping by the federal government that is eerily reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984. It does not seem sinister, though, since it thus far appears to be the outcome of an aggressive privatization policy that was probably compelled by the rapid implementation of our most recent wars. Nevertheless, Americans have the right to ask question, remain vigilant and demand answers if not reform.

“A majority of Americans – 56% – say that federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and internet data the government is collecting as part of its anti-terrorism efforts. An even larger percentage (70%) believes that the government uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism.

And despite the insistence by the president and other senior officials that only “metadata,” such as phone numbers and email addresses, is being collected, 63% think the government is also gathering information about the content of communications – with 27% believing the government has listened to or read their phone calls and emails.”

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